Rainbow House

392/0/10164 22-MAR-06

LIVERPOOL ARNOT STREET Rainbow House

GV II

Former School Board offices, now nursery school. c.1890 with minor late C20 alterations. By Edmund Kirby, architect, of Liverpool, for the Walton-On-The-Hill School Board. Red Ruabon brick with moulded brick and ashlar sandstone dressings, prominent chimneys with elaborate corbelled caps and decorated shafts and a slate roof covering with red clay crested ridges. PLAN: L-shaped complex at the west end of a triangular shaped site, incorporating offices, school board offices, boardroom and caretaker's accommodation. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attics, the principal elevation (south) of 5 bays to Arnot Street, the secondary elevation (west)to County Road. Arnot Street elevation with wide off-centre entrance within deep stepped moulded surround with shallow segmental-arched head. Above, wide storey band and first floor paired cross windows. Above this, a gablet flanked by wide chimney stacks, and incorporating a 3-light window with flanking blind lancets. To the right of the entrance bay, 2 further bays with 3-light windows, the attic openings without transoms, and set below hipped dormer roof projections with finials. Further right, a single storey range extends eastwards to link with the attached Arnot Street School (q.v.) To the right of the entrance, a single 2 storey bay links with a faceted corner turret incorporating 3-light windows in ashlar surrounds in the form of a 2-storey canted bay window, and set below a low faceted spire. County Road elevation with wide ground and first floor openings to the return bay, with wide expressed stepped chimney stack to north gable. INTERIOR: Not inspected. HISTORY: The Board School offices were built as the administrative headquarters of the Walton-On-The-Hill School Board, and were part of the development of an extensive integrated school complex by the board, implemented 1883-1891. The boardroom was located at first floor level, with the board offices below, and accommodation for a caretaker at above. Forms a group with Arnot Street School (q.v.)

The former School Board Offices at Arnot Street are of special architectural interest as a well-preserved and rare survival of purpose-built administrative facilities for a notable Liverpool School Board, built to the designs of an eminent C19 Liverpool architect, and forming part of one of the most extensive and ambitious Board School complexes to have been completed in a city noted for the quality of its post-1870 Elementary Education Act school building programme.